


Wait, what? Married?

by GraceEliz



Series: Why don't we just break the rules already? [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Crack, Fluff and Crack, Gen, In which Lex tells the story about the Steamroller Incident of '89, and Harvey throws his friends under the metaphorical bus, it's all very soft and lighthearted
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 18:02:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21212801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraceEliz/pseuds/GraceEliz
Summary: In which Tony and Lex have been married since '92, but they forgot, due to alcohol, and now Tim reminded them and it's a bit chaotic because they really don't want Pep finding out, considering the wedding is in a week, and JARVIS is a bit of a snitch.





	Wait, what? Married?

**Author's Note:**

> For MisaKi_BangTan, who requested a new fic for this verse, and is a loyal commenter. I hope you enjoy this.

The boys – men, now – sprawled over the soft couches in the upstate Avengers facility, all laughing at the expression of bewildered respect on Peter’s young face. Gasping, Tony managed to add the last highlight of the tale of years gone by:

“And then, when we’d got out right, and the police had let the car out of the pound, we realised we still hadn’t gone back for Rob, so there’s us three aged 16, 19 and 20, and we’ve got another 16-year-old American running loose in Yorkshire, presumably still in possession of the steamroller – ”

Lex, sprawled against Tony (who was the most upright of them all) on the long sofa nearest the picture windows, attempted to catch his breath long enough to finish up the story when Tony dissolved back into laughter. For a few long moments the sitting room contained nothing but the gasping wheezes of its occupants trying to get their composures back together. The youngest in the room were Damian and Peter, with opinions divided whether Bruce (who everyone was calling Rob because Bruce Banner was here too) or Steve held the title of oldest hooligan present (time travel and cryofreezing shenanigans really messed up the calculations). The Batfam had heard most of these tales during previous family meetups, even had the dubious honour of being present to watch several of the more recent incidents in real time, but anecdotes never got less funny when the ‘Dumbass Billionaire Squad’ themselves told it. Well, the anecdotes weren’t so much funny as they were unbelievably stupid and unlikely, and what made most people laugh wasn’t the content of the tales; rather the sight of the three greatest names in technology, a sometimes-antihero and a military general laughing hysterically during the recounting. 

After a minute of gasping and re-losing composure, Lex finally got himself together. “So this steamroller, this is the one that’s covered in paint, and we know if we get to the news then we can find it because you know it’s a feckin big vintage steamroller with our signatures on in really bright paint, it’s an eyesore,” he took a breath, “and so we stop at the local store, one of those little English corner shops, and we can’t understand a word of what this woman is saying because of the accent, but we manage to get the store radio on and we listen for a few minutes because it’s just coming up to the news and it’s the end of Bohemian Rhapsody - remember this was back in ’89 - and on the news is a report about an American kid in possession of a steamroller in custody in York, and we’re all in the wrong side of Yorkshire, so we get in the car and drive on over and when we get there, it’s five hours later, dark, we’ve been lost twice, stuck behind a tractor, and I nearly murdered Tony on the moors; Harvey is dissolved in laughter in the back, and we’re stressing out because it’s England and we keep driving on the wrong side of the road,” another heaved breath, “So we get into York and manage to find the police station and explain who we are and that this kid is Bruce Wayne and he’s with us and could we please have him back so we can go find a hotel and sleep all weekend, but he wants to know how Robbie boy got the steamroller in the first place, and I’m not going to say anything when SOMEONE - ”

“Okay in my defense, I hadn’t slept,” interrupted Harvey with a grin from his perch on the back of Bruce’s armchair. Bruce had one hand tangled in Tim’s hair, Dick curled on his lap. “So you can’t blame it on me.”

“Anyway,” Lex mock-glared, “Harv here said that Tonio bought the steamroller when drunk, and we didn’t know exactly how he’d got it, nor did we recall how exactly any of this had happened, and this six-foot glowering policeman is this close to throwing us all back in the cells for drink-driving or something, when Rob comes staggering out bold as brass and collapses at our feet, and so we’re looking at him, and the police are looking at us, and Rob’s not looking at anyone, and then the policeman heaves a sigh and rolls his eyes and says,”

“Bloody ‘ell, I’d be singin’ yer praises if you weren’t all illegal,” rumbled Bruce in a passable imitation of the Yorkshire policeman. The deep rumble made Dick snort in amusement which in turn set Harvey off, and that made Tony laugh again and within minutes the while collection of middle-aged celebrities had melted into laughter once again.

Steve rolled his eyes at them, but his lips were set in a broad smile. Bruce Banner just shook his head at his friends as only a man who knows the story already does, whilst Rhodey shook his head from his end of their shared sofa. The Batkids, scattered on the floor, had expressions ranging from amused to severely unimpressed. Of course, only the family could tell that Cass actually found these backstories almost as funny as Tony himself did – to everyone else she had the same mildly amused inscrutability as ever. The only kid not here was Steph, who had a project to hand in for her degree and hadn’t wanted the stress of trying to write it up in time for Tony’s private bachelor party.

“Did you get arrested again?” asked Peter.

“No,” said Rhodey, “but when Jarvis and Alfred got them they wished they had been. They got grounded, snuck out again to spend a day in the city, and got grounded even worse.”

Harvey raised his green cocktail, “Good times, good times.”

“You had alcohol poisoning,” said Bruce flatly. 

Tony snorted a laugh. “Yeah,” grinned Harvey, “You can’t talk. Your hangover lasted, like, three days.”

Jason shook his head incredulously. “I can’t understand why you lot are actually allowed out of the house.” Lex shrugged in response, but none of the five Dumbass Billionaire Squad members offered up an answer, which fulfilled Jason’s expectations. Some details were considered to be too private to the “old days”, to the days before the attack, before Batman and aliens and the mangled chaos of the years when Lex and Bruce were at odds and Tony was drowning himself in alcohol.

The atmosphere of the room dropped from mad laughter down to the fond reminiscence that usually made an appearance when they had a night together in the comfort of one of the homes, as opposed to the madness of going ‘on the lash’ – it took real strength for the kids to survive a night on the town with their father and uncles. Real strength.

“I think that was one of our stranger incidents,” reflected Harvey, still atop the armchair, “But the most ridiculous was probably the road trip.”

Bruce snorted.

“Thanks,” said Tony dryly.

Tim raised a hand. “You don’t need to raise your hand, kid,” drawled Tony, “Spit it out.”

“I found a marriage certificate.” The room stilled. “For you and Lex.”

The men in question sat up, frowning. Tony’s hair was ruffled, a few shirt buttons undone revealing the top of his reactor scars. Lex had no hair to get ruffled, but his Megamind t-shirt had a few splashes of spilled wine from earlier in the evening. Given the confused messiness of them both, it wouldn’t be surprising if Tim had thought up the idea so as to catch a photograph of them to spring out at the wedding. He had quite the collection of mildly embarrassing photos of the family.

“Marriage, us?”

Lex however looked far too suspicious for Jason’s comfort, so he looked over to his father, who seemed just uncomfortable enough that it lent weight to Jay’s madcap theory. The reluctant quiet stretched. 

“Uncle Tonio?”

“Ah – Timmy, boyo, where did you find this?”

“JARVIS,” answered Tim, “Did I do bad?”

“No, definitely not,” said Tony hurriedly. Tim relaxed under Bruce’s soothing hand. “It’s just – uh.”

Bruce heaved a sigh. One of those days, when something obscure from the past popped up and it turned out whatever the issue was hadn’t been sorted as presumed. They weren’t the worst, but they caused lots of fiddly little problems that took a lot of phone calls to fix. Tony and Lex being married wasn’t actually the hardest thing to resolve, what with them definitely never having had that type of relationship. They did say that very best friends were the people who you got drunk married to. He nudged Dick onto the chair arm, stretched his bad knee. “When did this happen?”

“Uh.”

“Ninety...three?” offered Harvey.

“No, it was after B left but before you got injured so Ninety to ninety-two.”

“Lex is right but it must have been before Christmas ’92,” said Tony, “Because Bruce was home that Christmas and it was the time we spent it with the Rhodeses.”

Once again, silence stretched through the room whilst the five ‘geniuses’ – their common sense was regularly called into question – racked the foggy memories of almost thirty years before. Steve and Bruce looked intrigued, to all appearances willing to sit and watch the chaos before their eyes.

“Halloween, ’92?” offered Lex, “I think there was a party in Vegas that week.” Another pause as Tony considered the option. 

“I think it was, because I flew to Belgium and met up with Bruce for three weeks and it must have happened then,” Harvey said firmly. Bruce looked bemused – this was the sort of chaos he was accustomed to enduring, but at least this one wasn’t directly his problem. He was more than happy to let his brothers and best mate fumble through the details for five minutes. They deserved the mental struggle.

Tim held up his pad, showing a copy of the certificate in question. It looked official, legal, somewhat expensive. It gave Bruce a headache. “You’re on the right lines,” he rumbled, deciding to take pity on his brothers, “Tim has a copy of it."

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“Because you deserved to suffer for a bit,” piped Tim. Flailing inelegantly, Lex rolled off the sofa to his feet, reaching for the pad so he could squint at the page JARVIS had dug out for them. He huffed in resignation before handing it to Tony.

From his corner sofa, Rhodey chuckled.

“Rhodey-bear?”

Rhodey shook his head. “You know this needs sorted before the wedding, or Pep will find out.”

Tony froze like a rabbit confronted with a Robin Reliant on a dark path. “Shit.”


End file.
